Amharic Relatives and Possessives-Definiteness, Agreement, and the Linker英文清晰版.pdf

Amharic Relatives and Possessives: Definiteness, Agreement, and the Linker Dikken, Marcel den, 1965- Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 38, Number 2, Spring 2007, pp. 302-320 (Article) Published by The MIT Press For additional information about this article /journals/lin/summary/v038/38.2dikken.html Access Provided by Peking University at 03/30/11 2:18PM GMT 302 R E M A R K S A N D R E P L I E S Amharic Relatives and Possessives: Definiteness, Agreement, and the Linker Marcel den Dikken Ouhalla’s (2004) valuable discussion of relativized and possessed noun phrases in Amharic leaves a number of questions open. Foremost among these is the placement of the linker element ya-. Starting from ¨ an analysis of relative clauses and possessors as predicates of their ‘‘heads,’’ this article develops a syntax of complex noun phrases in ˆ Amharic that explains the raison d’etre and placement of ya-, and also ¨ accommodates facts about definiteness marking and agreement in the Amharic complex noun phrase that have hitherto la